Not going to Coors Classic was a blow that sent me into a knock-out. I wanted to quit. Quitting was already on my mind on and off after a car ride with Bogdan in Kiev, but my desire to get out of the country was stronger than a thought of what he might do with my case.I saw the first two non-selections for European races as a combination of my average performance and young age. Perhaps, I thought, they want to spare me for the second half of the season or even for next year, but then I … [Read more...]

A gust of crisp, icy wind hit me on the chest when I stepped outside. I was covered in sweat, the shirt on my back stuck to my skin under a leather jacket. Of all Russian words, one I didn’t want to hear right now was the dreaded poshli (let’s go), a word thousands of men and women of my country heard coming out of KGB agents’ rotten mouths — a one-word condemnation to a living hell of the merciless gulag.The Volga hadn’t driven away, it’d been idling next to us on the street. The driver, … [Read more...]

We drove in silence toward Kreshchatyk, then plunged down by the ancient cobbles of Vladimirsky Descent, past the Pochtovaya Square, into Podol’s narrow, rambling streets. Looking out the window at the pedestrians, scurrying down the sidewalks in their colourless winter jackets and coats, I wondered what people do when KGB sends an officer with an uber-Ukrainian name like Bogdan, in a black Volga for goodness’ sake, to pick you up. Should I ask where we’re going, what’s going on? Or pretend I … [Read more...]

Anton and I flew to Sochi — a short, 45-minute hop from Nalchik — on a compact 24-seater Yak-40 jet. Ukrainian State Committee of Physical Culture and Sports rewarded my efforts in France with a 2000-rouble payment, enough to live worry-free in USSR for a year. I was keen to burn some of it in Sochi with my friend.We took a cab from the airport and went straight to Chaika, a swanky restaurant in Sochi’s seaport terminal. Built in neo-classicism Stalinist style with columns and 10-meter-high … [Read more...]

When an Air France flight carrying four newly minted Junior World Champions from Paris touched down in Sheremetyevo International Airport at the dawn of mid-August morning, Anton Morgatchev was on a commuter train from Sergiev Posad to Moscow. Bewildered after three days of parties, he was regaining a grip on reality again. He thought of the drugs and the parties as nothing but the means to escape the clutches of depressukha, that all-pervasive despair many in Soviet Union lived in from the … [Read more...]